The main reason I play games is immersion. I’m happiest when a game is so
convincing, the screen and controller melt away and I feel like I’m truly inside
the game world. Books and movies often suspend disbelief in the same way, but
since they’re interactive, good games can do it like no other medium I know.

Given that, Shadow of the Colossus is one of the most immersive experiences
I’ve ever had. There’s surprisingly little to it, but it’s executed with such
startling focus and purity that it far surpasses other games.

The game world is desolate, beautiful, and utterly convincing. Birds wheel in
the sky, waterfalls roar in the distance, and clouds slowly move across
mountains on the horizon. It’s a single, sprawling expanse, and you can go
anywhere you can see. I spent a couple hours just wandering the mountains,
deserts, canyons, lakes, and forests that make up the landscape.

The colossi themselves are massive, and fighting them is breathtaking. You
actually feel like you’re clinging to a living, breathing creature the size of a
10-story building. The ones based on animals are particularly amazing. I won’t
soon forget hanging onto one colossus’s wings in midair, or clutching another’s
fins as it dove underwater.

Shadow of the Colossus was made by the same people who made
Ico, and like Ico,
it’s one of only a few games that I can unabashedly call a work of art. It’s
unforgettable.

Update: Sony’s engineering team recently talked at
length about SOTC’s
graphics and the effects they used, including (pseudo) HDR, motion blur, fur
shaders, and extreme LOD rendering for terrain. It’s a great read, very candid
and in-depth.

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2 thoughts on “Shadow of the Colossus”

i rarely even finish most games i play, much less replay them, but thanks to the the remastered ico and shadow of the colossus collection, i recently played through ico again and i’m a few hours into shadow of the colossus. the graphics and design do show their age, but i still love them both for all the same reasons.

i also forgot how hard they can be! i love games, and i’ve played them for a long time, but – with a few exceptions – i’ve never actually gotten any good at them. games are hard, let’s go shopping, indeed.